Early  Communication  Between 

China  and  the  Mediterranean 


A Paper 

submitted  at  the  General  Meeting 
of 

THE  AMERICAN  PHILOSOPHICAL  SOCIETY 


held  at  Philadelphia 
April  21,  1921 

by 


WILFRED  H.  ^HOFF 

Secretary,  The  Commercial  Museum 
Philadelphia,  Pa. 


in  2017  with  funding  from 
Columbia  University  Libraries 


https://archive.org/details/earlycommunicatiOOscho 


EARLY  COMMUNICATION  BETWEEN  CHINA  AND  THE 
MEDITERRANEAN 


The  question  of  the  date  at  which  commercial  relations  were 
opened  between  Mediterranean  lands  and  the  Far  East,  especially 
China  and  Indo-China,  arises  frequently  in  history,  particularly 
in  the  interpretation  of  historical  texts.  Such  relations  are  assumed 
with  the  assumption  of  the  existence  in  the  trade  of  Mediterranean 
lands  of  materials  having  a Far  Eastern  origin.  It  may  be  of  inter- 
est to  refer  briefly  to  some  of  the  practical  questions  involved. 

Commerce  between  nations  or  culture-fields  presupposes  an 
orderly  state  of  society,  an  excess  of  production  and  a desire  for 
things  not  locally  produced,  a reasonable  security  of  trade  routes 
and  a medium  or  basis  of  exchange.  Under  nomadic  or  tribal 
conditions  these  requisites  do  not  exist,  nor  can  relations  readily 
continue  between  well-ordered  communities  widely  separated  by 
natural  barriers,  or  by  savage  or  hostile  tribes.  Civilization  dawned 
in  fertile  river  valleys  capable  of  supporting  an  agricultural  popula- 
tion. Such  were  the  Nile,  Mesopotamia,  the  Punjab  and  the  Ganges, 
and  the  great  rivers  of  China  and  Indo-China  widely  separated  at 
their  mouths,  but  their  sources  close  together.  Between  these 
valleys  are  wide  tracts  of  desert  and  tremendous  ranges  of  moun- 
tains. Relations  between  Egypt  and  Mesopotamia  were  facilitated 
by  the  short  distance  of  about  one  hundred  miles  between  the 
upper  bend  of  the  Euphrates  and  the  Gulf  of  Alexandretta,  a 
relatively  fertile  strip  skirting  the  base  of  the  mountains.  Between 
the  Punjab  and  the  Ganges  no  natural  barrier  existed,  and  rela- 
tions were  early  and  continuous.  Down  the  radiating  river  courses 
of  the  Far  East  mankind  migrated  in  the  direction  of  separation 
rather  than  intercourse.  Until  a comparatively  late  date,  the 
barriers  between  the  culture-fields  of  Mesopotamia  and  those 
further  east  were  too  great  for  regular  communication  to  exist. 
The  history  of  Babylonia  is  a succession  of  periods  of  domestic 
prosperity  interrupted  by  the  raiding  and  pillage  of  savage  peoples 
who  came  down  the  eastern  mountain  passes  and  who  were,  in 
course  of  time,  absorbed  or  expelled.  Not  until  the  Assyrian 
Empire  is  there  apparently  any  evidence  of  the  regular  receipt  of 
tribute  from  tribes  near  the  Indus  watershed,  nor  until  the  Persian 
Empire,  any  central  administration  whose  authority  was  recog- 
nized from  the  Indus  to  the  Mediterranean.  Assyrian  tribute  lists 

3 


tell  of  “products  of  the  mountain”,  by  which  we  may  understand 
Media  and  Armenia,  and  “wealth  of  the  sea”,  a part  only  of  the 
Arabian  shore  of  the  Persian  Gulf.  Beyond  that  shore  were  forty 
days  of  caravan  routes  to  the  South  Arabian  valleys  that  produced 
aromatics,  reached  also  by  sea  from  Egypt;  but  beyond  the  moun- 
tains eastward  after  a climb  of  5,250  feet  above  the  valley  of  the 
Tigris,  were  1,500  miles,  mainly  desert,  to  the  valley  of  the  Oxus, 
and  500  more,  including  the  Khaibar  Pass,  3,400  feet,  to  the  Pun- 
jab. Thence  to  the  Vale  of  Kashmir,  250  miles  and  a climb  of 
5,000  to  8,000  feet.  From  the  Oxus  to  the  sands  of  Turkestan 
were  about  800  miles  with  the  great  range  of  the  Pamirs  interven- 
ing, and  the  Bolor  Pass  of  some  14,000  feet  to  negotiate.  Once 
east  of  the  Pamirs,  1,600  miles  of  desert  separated  the  traveler 
from  the  western  rim  of  Chinese  civilization,  and  2,000  miles  from 
its  ancient  capital,  Singan-fu.  By  the  southerly  route  from  Baby- 
lon to  the  mohth  of  the  Indus  were  nearly  2,000  miles  of  mountain 
and  desert.  The  shores  of  the  Persian  Gulf  and  Indian  Ocean 
between  those  points  were  sparsely  peopled  by  tribes  possessing  no 
culture  and  barely  the  means  of  subsistence.  The  route  chart 
itself  explains  why  the  outlook  of  both  Egypt  and  Babyloilia  was 
toward  Asia  Minor  and  the  Aegean  rather  than  the  forbidding 
East,  and  why  the  furthest  commercial  venturing  in  that  direction 
in  early  times  was  toward  the  incense  lands  that  bordered  the 
Gulf  of  Aden. 

Arrian,  the  historian  of  Alexander’s  campaigns,  speaks  of  the 
tribes  to  the  west  of  the  Indus  as  having  been  in  ancient  times 
subject  to  the  Assyrians,  afterwards  to  the  Medes,  and  as  having 
submitted  finally  to  the  Persians.^  Again  he  says  that  the  Persians 
were  not  a sea-faring  people,  and  that  when  they  conquered 
Babylonia  they  obstructed  the  Euphrates  to  prevent  attack  by 
invaders  coming  from  the  south.^  While  they  subsidized  one 
coastwise  exploring  expedition  from  the  Indus  westward,  it  led 
apparently  to  no  permanent  results.  Such  sea  trade  as  existed  in 
the  Persian  Gulf  Aristobulus  indicates  was  done  upon  rafts.^ 
Navigation  was  general  in  Babylonia  from  a very  early  date,  but 
the  vessels  were  river-craft,  of  types  that  would  have  been  useless 
in  the  open  sea.  Arrian  states  the  theoretical  possibility  of  navi- 
gating from  the  mouth  of  the  Euphrates  to  the  head  of  the  Red 

* Indica  1 
Anab.  Alex.  7,  7 
^ Herodotus,  4,  44 
^ Strabo  16.  3.3 


4 


Sea,  but  asserts  that  this  had  never  been  done  on  account  of  the 
heat  and  desolateness  of  the  country.  Egyptian  ships  had  coasted 
the  southern  shore  of  Arabia,  but  turned  back  because  the  water 
put  into  their  ships  did  not  allow  a longer  voyage.  The  Persian 
armies  that  conquered  Egypt  had  gone  overland  across  Arabia, 
traveling  eight  days  over  a country  waterless  and  desolate,  carry- 
ing water  for  themselves  on  the  camels’  backs  and  journeying  by 
night  because  of  their  inability  to  keep  under  the  open  sky  during 
the  day.^  The  return  voyage  of  a part  of  Alexander’s  army  by 
sea  from  the  Indus  to  the  Euphrates  was  made  in  vessels  built  by 
his  command  in  the  Punjab;  and  along  the  entire  course,  which 
is  minutely  recorded,  boats  are  mentioned  at  only  two  places,  and 
those  but  wretched  fishing  craft. ^ The  most  of  the  people  living 
along  the  shore  were  found  to  have  no  boats  and  to  depend  for 
their  scanty  supply  of  fish  upon  the  ebbing  of  the  tide.  That  part 
of  the  army  that  made  the  journey  by  land  nearly  perished  in  the 
desert,  and  destroyed  most  of  their  wagons  because  the  wheels 
sank  so  deep  in  the  sand  that  they  could  not  be  drawn  by  man  or 
beast.®  When  Alexander  decided  to  make  the  lower  Euphrates 
navigable,  he  had  a fleet  of  Phoenician  galleys  taken  to  pieces  and 
carried  overland  to  Thapsacus  and  thence  floated  down  stream. 
The  same  thing  was  done  by  Sennacherib  for  his  campaign  at  the 
mouth  of  the  Euphrates,  the  navy  being  supplied  by  Phoenicians 
from  the  Mediterranean,  who,  if  we  may  follow  a rendering  in 
the  new  Jewish  revision,^  received  in  return  a concession  of  sea 
trade  in  the  Persian  Gulf;  “Behold  the  land  of  the  Chaldeans! 
This  is  the  people  that  was  not,  when  Asshur  founded  it  for  ship- 
men.”  And  we  may  infer  that  it  was  they  who  organized  such  sea 
trade  as  the  Chaldean  kingdom  may  have  had,  and  that  it  was 
their  descendants,  driven  out  by  the  Persians,  who  settled  at 
Gerrha  in  Arabia  and  continued  the  trade.®  To  the  existence  of 
sea  trade  with  Western  India  we  have  a few  allusions  in  Buddhist 
writings  which  cannot  be  dated  before  the  Persian  conquest,  or 
their  facts  before  the  Neo-Babylonian  period.® 

Soon  after  the  Christian  era,  and  for  a period  of  about  two 
centuries,  relations  were  constant  and  commerce  active  over  a 

* Indica  43;  cf.  Anab.  Alex.  7,  20 
® Indica  27 

® Anab.  Alex.  6,  25 

’ Isaiah  23.  13;  Cf.  the  Kouyunjik  ship  reliefs  in  Layard’s  Nineveh. 

* Strabo  16.3,  3 

® Baveru  Jataka,  Cambridge  ed.  Ill,  339.  Supparaka  Jataka  ibid.  IV,  138-142- 
Digha  Nikaya  I,  222 


5 


sequence  of  trade  routes  that  stretched  from  Britain  to  the  Medi- 
terranean, and  thence  to  the  China  Sea.  Abundant  records  remain 
of  that  trade,  and  of  the  ports  and  border  stations  where  it  was 
exchanged.  Vessels  from  the  Red  Sea  and  the  Persian  Gulf  coasted 
the  ports  of  Western  India,  where  they  found  an  efficient  light- 
house and  pilotage  system.  At  the  Tamil  ports  in  southern  India 
they  found  larger  and  perhaps  more  numerous  vessels  that  traded 
to  the  Golden  Coast  of  southern  Burma,  whence  there  was  a river 
trade-route  that  led  to  the  highlands  of  China,  or  ocean  routes  as 
far  as  its  southern  coast.^”  From  the  Euphrates  and  Tigris  to  the 
Pamirs  there  was  a succession  of  caravan  stations  providing  shelter 
for  man  and  beast,  and  a silk  market  in  a valley  of  the  Pamirs 
where  trade  was  carried  on  by  barter. “ The  silk  industry  flourished 
in  Western  Turkestan  and  was  in  regular  communication  across 
the  desert  with  western  China.  But  the  discoveries  of  Stein  point 
toward  the  2nd  or  3rd  Century  B.  C.  as  its  point  of  departure.®^ 
The  recent  excavations  at  Taxila,  that  great  stronghold  of  north- 
western India,  point  to  a period  of  growth  that  began  with  the 
Persian  Empire,  when  Achaemenid  officers  brought  the  Aramaic 
alphabet  to  the  Punjab.*^  The  Chinese  Annals,  so  far  as  they  have 
been  made  available,  indicate  no  knowledge  of  lands  west  of  the 
Pamirs  before  the  Parthian  period. The  same  condition  is  shown 
upon  reference  to  the  Turkish  tribes  who,  in  early  times,  were 
parasites  upon  Chinese  civilization  and  dwelt  to  the  north  of 
China.  It  was  the  construction  of  the  Great  Wall  of  China  in  the 
3rd  century  B.  C.  and  the  adoption  of  a vigorous  policy  against 
these  tribes  which  forced  them  westward  across  the  great  desert  to 
seek  their  prey  elsewhere,  and  it  is  at  about  this  time  that  we  find 
them  impinging  upon  Graeco-Bactrian  and  Seleucid  dominions 
followed  by  Chinese  troops,*^  and  thus  incidentally  bridging  the 
gaps  in  the  communication  between  the  Near  East  and  Far  East. 
Hindu  and  Tamil  literature  also  suggests  a trading  impulse  of  the 
Parthian  period.^®  This  is  not  surprising  in  view  of  the  relations 

Periplus  of  the  Erythraean  Sea,  60;  Paddinappalai  1-40,  134-136:  Pillai,  The 
Tamils  Eighteen  Hundred  Years  Ago. 

Ammianus  Marcellinus  23,  6:  Parthian  Stations  of  Isidorus  of  Charax. 

Cf.  Chavannes,  Les  Documents  Chinois  decouverts  par  Aurel  Stein  dans  les 
sables  du  Turkestan  Oriental. 

J R A S 1915,  pp.  340-7:  Sir  John  Marshall,  A Guide  to  Taxila,  Ch.  II. 

Cf.  Hirth,  China  and  the  Roman  Orient,  35-40:  Laufer,  Sino-Iranica,  Introduc- 
tion 

Czaplicka,  Turks  of  Central  Asia,  61-70.  The  Turks  borrowed  an  Aramaic  or 
Neo-Pehlevi  alphabet  at  this  time. 

Elliot,  Coins  of  Southern  India 


6 


between  states  in  ancient  India,  which  recent  studies  indicate 
were  based  on  the  assumption  of  the  adjacency  of  states  as  a 
source  of  rivalry  and  differenced^  The  immediate  neighbors  of  a 
state  would  be  counted  as  hostile,  those  in  the  second  zone  as 
friendly,  those  in  the  third  zone  as  hostile,  so  that  there  was  a 
regular  classification  of  central  state,  enemy,  friend,  enemy’s 
friend,  friend’s  friend  and  so  on.  Under  such  conditions  commerce 
could  hardly  flourish.  It  was  not  until  the  post-Alexandrian  con- 
quests by  the  Mauryas  that  anything  like  political  unity  was 
attained  in  India,  and  that  ambassadors,  who  were  at  the  same 
time  missionaries  of  religion,  could  be  sent  by  Asoka  to  his  con- 
temporaries at  Seleucia,  Antioch  and  Alexandria,  and  in  Macedonia, 
Epirus  and  Cyrene.^*  So  little  did  the  first  Chinese  envoy  to  visit 
the  Euphrates,  not  far  from  the  Christian  era,  know  of  the  prop- 
erties of  salt  water  that  he  records  having  been  deterred  from 
venturing  aboard  ship  on  the  ground  that  it  would  “make  one 
long  for  home.”  So  far  as  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  can  be  relied 
upon  for  material  in  this  connection,  we  do  not  find  in  them  men- 
tion of  unmistakably  Eastern  products  except  in  sections  that  can 
be  identified  as  surely  post-exilic,  and  not  until  the  book  of  Esther, 
probably  one  of  the  latest,  is  there  direct  mention  of  India. 

Natural  conditions  support  the  historical  record.  The  weather 
in  the  Persian  Gulf  and  the  Gulf  of  Oman  is  unfavorable  to  naviga- 
tion in  primitive  craft  such  as  we  know  through  Babylonian  and 
Egyptian  records.  According  to  the  “Persian  Gulf  Pilot”  the 
southwest  monsoon  is  not  felt  inside  Ras  al  Hadd.  Winds  are 
variable  and  treacherous.  The  prevailing  wind  is  the  northwestern 
called  shamal,  a dry  wind  densely  loaded  with  dust  and  sand,  so 
that  the  land  is  obscured.  It  comes  without  warning,  and  reaches 
the  force  of  a hard  gale,  accompanied  by  a heavy  swell,  and  even 
a steam  vessel  of  small  power  is  advised  to  obtain  anchorage  if 
possible,  as  it  can  make  no  headway  against  it.  During  the  winter 
southeasters,  called  kaus^  or  sharqi,  alternate  with  the  shamal, 
sometimes  so  closely  that  a vessel  anchored  against  the  kaus  may 
be  driven  ashore  by  the  shamal.  In  winter  strong  northeasterly 
winds,  called  nashi,  are  experienced,  and  there  is  an  occasional 
southwester,  called  suhaili,  which  blows  into  nearly  all  the  sheltered 
anchorages  on  the  Persian  Coast.  On  the  Makran  coast  the  south- 

Narendra  Nath  Law,  Interstate  Relations  in  Ancient  India:  cf.  Kautiliya, 

book  IV. 

“ Rock  Inscriptions,  Edict  XIII  (V.  A.  Smith,  Asoka,  p.  129-132) 

U.  S.  Hydrographic  Office,  No.  158,  pp.  24-29 

7 


west  monsoon  is  accompanied  by  a heavy  swell  which  strikes  the 
coast  at  an  angle  and  is  dangerous  to  small  craft.  The  same 
authority  warns  of  tidal  currents,  tide-rips,  counter-currents  and 
eddies,  abreast  of  all  large  bays  and  bights,  of  which  there  are 
many  along  these  coasts. 

The  climate  is  also  described  as  unfavorable;  intensely  hot 
and  humid  in  summer,  rainless  and  cloudless  and  aggravated  by 
dust-laden  winds,  and  the  more  distressing  because  of  the  great 
heat  at  night;  cold  and  boisterous  in  winter. 

It  is  not  surprising  to  find  ships  of  the  Mohammedan  period 
offering  sacrifices  to  the  jinni  of  the  sea  upon  entering  or  leaving 
the  Persian  Gulf  or  proceeding  in  fear  of  the  fabled  loadstone  that 
might  draw  any  ship  to  the  bottom;  or  to  read  of  the  inhabitants 
of  Hormuz  lying  at  midday  in  pools  of  water  to  temper  the  scorch- 
ing heat;  or  of  the  Persian  envoy  who  found  hunting  in  Oman 
“a  matter  of  perfect  ease,  for  the  desert  was  filled  with  roasted 
gazelles”. 

Comparative  distances  are  equally  unfavorable  to  the  cir- 
cumnavigation of  Arabia.  By  water,  from  the  head  of  the  Gulf  of 
’Akaba  to  the  mouth  of  the  Shatt-al-’Arab,  it  is  about  3,900  miles; 
by  land,  about  800.  Allowing  about  40  miles  to  the  day’s  caravan 
journey  and  100  to  the  day’s  sail  (both  rather  above  the  actual 
average)  the  caravan  would  take  20  days  and  the  vessel  39.  But 
this  assumes  for  the  vessel  a continuity  of  favorable  winds  and 
weather,  which  is  out  of  the  question  in  the  four  courses  involved — 
Persian  Gulf,  Gulf  of  Oman,  Gulf  of  Aden  and  Red  Sea.  During 
only  one  or  two  months  in  the  year  could  such  a voyage  be  under- 
taken with  any  expectation  of  favorable  weather,  and  the  sea 
journey  would  have  taken,  on  the  average,  about  three  times  as 
long  as  the  land  journey. 

Philostratus,  in  his  Life  of  Apollonius  of  Tyana,^®  mentions 
the  dangers  to  Egyptian  shipping  from  the  “barbarians  who 
dwell  on  the  right-hand  side  as  you  enter  the  Gulf”  (i.  e.,  the  Red 
Sea).  Ships  carried  complements  of  soldiers  for  protection,  and 
the  right  of  Egypt  to  navigate  beyond  the  Straits  of  Bab-al- 
Mandab  was  limited  at  one  time  to  one  ship  per  season — a restric- 
tion rather  like  that  which  the  Hohenzollern  Kaiser  wished  to 
impose  upon  the  United  States. 

The  tribes  of  Southern  Arabia,  especially  those  east  of  Ras 
Fartak,  were  never  brought  into  close  relations  with  any  northern 

civilization,  and  it  must  have  been  a hazardous  undertaking  for 

__ 


8 


any  coasting  vessel  short  of  water  to  land  on  their  shores  to  seek  it. 
Arrian’s  assumption  of  the  necessity  of  carrying  on  board  all  the 
water  needed  for  the  voyage  was  probably  based  on  more  than 
mere  topography. 

Between  Egypt  and  India,  at  regularly  alternating  seasons, 
monsoon  winds  favor  a continuous  voyage.  Between  Babylonia 
and  India  monsoon  winds  can  be  utilized  for  about  half  the  dis- 
tance, the  remainder  being  uncertain  and  often  dangerous.  Be- 
tween Babylonia  and  Egypt  conditions  of  navigation  are  generally 
unfavorable.^* 

In  summary  it  may  be  said  that  products  of  India  reached 
Mediterranean  lands  after  the  Persian  conquest;  that  the  loose 
system  of  government  set  up  by  the  Persians  resulted  in  the 
accumulation  of  great  stores  of  tribute  rather  than  the  encourage- 
ment of  trade;  and  that  it  was  the  reaction  of  the  Greeks  eastward 
which  first  combined  traders  with  military  enterprise  and  resulted 
in  the  establishment  and  maintenance  of  trading  cities  along  the 
highways  of  commerce.  It  was  as  a result  of  the  plans  of  Alexander 
that  Alexandria  and  Antioch,  Charax  and  Seleucia,  Bactra,  Taxila 
and  Kashgar  became  foci  of  world  business,  that  trading  fleets 
were  subsidized  and  protected  and  caravan  routes  laid  out  with 
stations  at  intervals  of  a day’s  journey  and  likewise  protected  from 
attack;  and  it  was  not  until  the  Parthian  conquest  of  the  eastern 
portion  of  Alexander’s  domain  that  the  predatory  nomad  estab- 
lished himself  as  a protector  of  trade  routes  for  his  own  advantage, 
and  trade  with  China  was  undertaken.  This  was  the  sequence  of 
events  that  made  possible  the  wonderful  prosperity  of  the  epoch 
from  Augustus  to  Marcus  Aurelius.  The  diplomacy  of  that  period, 
so  far  as  it  can  be  traced,  was  aimed  at  relieving  commerce  of 
burdensome  exactions,  or  at  destroying  raiders  and  pirates;  and 
its  civilization  came  to  an  end  when  government  became  too  weak 
to  control  these  forces  of  destruction. 

Commerce  between  India  and  the  ^Mediterranean  dates, 
therefore,  from  the  Persian  Empire,  with  an  interesting  possibility 
of  sea  trade  between  Western  India  and  the  Euphrates  during  the 
Neo-Babylonian  period.  Commerce  between  China,  or  even 
Turkish  lands  in  Central  Asia,  and  the  Mediterranean  dates  from 
the  Bactrian  and  Parthian  period. 

The  discoveries  in  recent  years  have  not  materially  altered 

**  Some  further  considerations  on  these  practical  questions  affecting  ancient  sea 
trade  will  be  found  in  the  present  writer’s  The  Ship  Tyre,  Longmans  1920, 
ch.  IV,  “Ophir  Voyages”. 


9 


the  views  expressed  by  historians  of  a century  ago,  as,  for  instance, 
Vincent  in  his  “Commerce  and  Navigation  of  the  Ancients”  that 
it  was  as  a “consequence  of  the  genius  of  Alexander  that  com- 
munication was  opened  between  Europe  and  the  most  distant 
countries  of  Asia,  and  a foundation  laid  for  the  modern  system  of 
international  commerce.” 


